How to Grow Big Houseplants
The light and humidity in the corner of your living room bear no resemblance to that of a West African rain forest, and you cannot fool the fiddle leaf fig tree into thinking so.
From Grunge to Gorgeous
March of 2020: lockdown. What I crave more than anything: a garden. What I’ve got: 100 square feet of broken concrete, surrounded by a broken fence, looking onto a vacant lot which the guy down the block insists is his. (It’s not.) I’ve gotten into a guerrilla gardening war over this lot, and lost.
Why Get Political? A Love Letter.
“Don’t mix business with politics.” If you follow Practical ...
7 Simple Fixes for the Highly Sensitive Person’s Home Office
The amount of natural light we are exposed to, the air quality, ambient noise, textures, visual clutter and smells can help us manage our stress. Taking some time to align our workspaces can have a big payoff in terms of our mental and emotional resilience. You don’t have to remodel your home, fire your family, or spend a ton of money you don’t have on office furniture in order to radically improve your working and living space in a short time. Most of what you need is already available; it’s just a question of fitting the puzzle pieces together.
Sensory Integration: How To Decode What Your Child Is Telling You
So often, children with sensory issues are treated for behavioral problems, with or without acknowledging what sensory needs might be driving the behavior. When therapists focus on addressing unwanted behaviors without digging deeper, we can miss an opportunity to help a struggling child.
The ONE Biggest Mistake
You don't have to take down a wall to see radical improvement in your interior design. Just start with the simple stuff!
The Eccentric Genius: Neurodiversity and Design
Neurodiverse people have brains that differ from the majority, in the ways they organize and process information. This can include people on the autism spectrum, people with sensory sensitivities, and people with ADHD. There is a lot of overlap, and specific patterns of neurodiversity vary quite a bit.
Feral Artists and Eccentric Habitats
"...the two things that stood out about SFAI was that it provided no formal education and no practical support, either during your tenure there or upon graduation. Students were simply thrown into a mud pit and encouraged to rend one another."
Space, Power and Sexism
When we talk about space, we inevitably talk about ...
UPDATE ON PAST PROJECT
Franny Lou's extended the kitchen into the space formerly ...
The Obvious Thing
What can't I see? Long ago I had a boyfriend ...
All About Sound
Ecstatic dance: rolling around a vibrating floor with a ...
Time’s Executioner
Friends with neurodiverse brains have told me that it often feels like they are living in the eternal present. Things happen around them, but it feels like watching someone dancing in a strobe light--a series of poses that might be connected, but there's no linear path that they can track.
How To Avoid Being Swallowed
It’s impossible to overstate how big an effect your ...
Decluttering Your Mind
This week I went on a decluttering tear. Sorting ...
The Patron from Hell
Really truly? I am that patron. I ...
Scream Machines and Big Design
One of the people I loved most in the ...
Sustainability: It’s Your Health
TW: language, family dysfunction When we first moved to ...
Frigid Dining
Lately I’ve been rubbernecking Architectural Digest. It’s not that ...
Moving Rocks
Last Friday I spent the whole day laying a ...
Dandelions at Franny Lou’s
This Valentine's Day, I painted purple dandelions. If you've ...
Why Decoration Is High Art
It's the easiest thing in the world. You don't ...
How Design Can Break You
A walk through a BMW showroom once gave me ...
You Don’t Need Twelve Million Dollars
...to have an amazing home. In my inbox today: ...
How To Choose A Room Color
It’s impossible to overstate how big an effect color ...
How NOT to Hang Art
Who hung this show? What's wrong with this ...
